The global CRO Quintiles won some enthusiastic support for its IPO, raising close to a billion dollars for the company and its top investors after hiking the number of shares sold at the top of its range. With investor demand running hot, Quintiles wound up selling 23.7 million shares at $40 each, raking in $947 million as market bulls push the Dow ever higher.
Quintiles wound up selling 13.1 million shares while company founder and executive chairman Dennis Gillings and a group of private equity players--including Bain Capital and TPG Capital, which joined Gillings in taking the company private in 2008--cashed out of the rest. That money will now be used to pay off debt and close a management agreement struck with the private equity companies.
This morning Quintiles shares surged 10%, giving the company a valuation of $5.7 billion. The jump also makes Gillings, who held 25 million shares, a billionaire.
The company, which will trade under the symbol "Q," has been driving consolidation in the outsourcing business, earning rising revenues as it became a go-to player for a wide variety of players in the biopharma business who were following the same game plan. Just weeks ago, for example, Quintiles was named a preferred provider by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Quintiles earned $3.7 billion in revenue last year after pursuing a range of M&A deals. And it has deals in place with the top 20 drugmakers in the world.
- here's the press release
- read the Reuters story
- see the Bloomberg report
Special Report: Top 10 biotech IPOs of 2012